Sermons of Robert Murray MCheyne 2. Christ the Only Refuge

Extract

“Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast” Isaiah 26:20.

This passage is a word in season to God’s people in every time of impending calamity. The form of expression is evidently taken from that dreadful night when God passed through the land of Egypt to smite all the firstborn of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat upon the throne to the firstborn of the captive that sat in the dungeon. “And Pharaoh arose in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.” But God had commanded his own Israel to kill the paschal lamb, the type of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, and to take the bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood: “And none of you (said he) shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.” As if he had said: “Come, my people, enter into thy chambers, and shut thy blood- sprinkled doors about thee; hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.”

It may be difficult to determine what time of indignation the prophet here refers to. The prophecy was given in the beginning of Hezekiah’s reign, when many a destruction was yet to come upon the land of Israel. The invasion by Sennacherib the Assyrian was just at hand, and may be primarily referred to. The invasion by Nebuchadnezzar, and seventy years’ captivity was also coming; and this also may be referred to. And the invasion by the Romans, in which Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Jews finally dispersed over the world, may also be referred to. And in all these coming indignations, God’s word to his people was, to hide in their chambers; in the refuge which he had appointed them, till the indignation should be overpast.

But most of all does this prophecy refer to the great storm of indignation which God is yet going to bring upon the world, before the end come; when the Lord Jesus shall come a second time, without sin unto salvation; when he shall come again, no …